French Muslims call on Hollande to speak out on Islamophobia

French Muslim leaders have appealed to President François Hollande come out as strongly against Islamophobia as he has against anti-Semitism. They estimate that the number of anti-Muslim acts in France rose 34 per cent last year.

Leaders of the Muslim umbrella body, the CFCM, which was set up by former president Nicolas Sarkozy when he was interior minister, met Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on

On 7 October he declared that “France’s Muslims should not suffer from radical Islamism, they are also its victims”.

Two French bishops have also expressed concern at the rise in prejudice against Muslims.

“It’s with great sorrow that I see the emergence of a Catholic anti-Islamism, just as there was a Catholic anti-Semitism for centuries,” Bishop Claude Dagens of Angoulême told the AFP news agency during the annual meeting of France’s bishops in Lourdes.

And Marseille’s Archbishop Georges Pontier commented that “those who speak a language of fear are those who meet Muslims least often”, while also pointing to a hardening of attitudes in the “Muslim community”.